120 comments:

There was enough humor in the clips I saw to keep me from yelling "let them eat cake" at the peasants (damned peasants...so poor and filthy...), but not enough to watch for any prolonged amount of time like five minutes.

..What are the odds that the people who knew exactly what Keynsian meant were edited out of the clip?

Seriously - I don't know much about the american education system, but would someone who is not concentrating on economics or knows a lot about economic affairs know about Keynes or Friedman? Was his name common knowledge to you guys when you were in your early 20's to late 20s?

Hahah.... I hope that fat high shrill woman gets to see just what an idiot she is. If I knew who she was, I would spam this video to all of her friends and co-workers. Sweet.

Seriously. Reminds me of some relatives that I have who say things like "Sarah Palin is stupid." and who have no reason for their decision. When asked what they think she has said that is stupid or what she has done, they have no examples or anything other than something along the lines.....well everyone knows.

I may not agree with your position but for GOD'S sake at least have some reasoning behind your positions.

So...a bunch of americans are geographically ignorant. Is that the point?

This might come off as superciliousness - but the lack of knowledge of world geographical or world history among americans isn't exactly uncommon. I've come across plenty of really smart/succesful colleagues who thought India was in the middle east and was primarily a muslim country, and that Sikhs were also muslims because they wear turbans. And their lack of knowledge had no correlation whatsoever with their level of intelligence or their political persuasion.

The video was hilarious, but it was also painful to watch. Like the man-on-the-street quizes Leno does, I sincerly hope this video didn't present a random sample of the responses.

To answer the question, I knew who Keynes was when I was in high school. The mantra from the left is that the Tea Party is made up of a bunch of illiterate hicks. I'll bet that most Tea Partiers could not only name Keynes, they could offer a pretty fair critique of why his economic theories offer little insight in what should be done to get our economy moving again.

Calling an academic a buffoon because subsequent discoveries and research proved him wrong...is kind of odd, don't you think?

No one would call Newton a buffoon just because Einstein comprehensively proved him wrong. And...in many cases, we still use newtonian mechanics.

Economics is even less deterministic, and frameworks are bound to fail at some point. Miltonian theories have also shown to fail in some cases. In physics, one can at least dream of a GUT. In Economics, a GUT doesn't even seem in the realm of possibility.

Ankur: I was an English major and knew about Keynes. I also knew the names, if not the thinking, of most of the thinkers you list. I believe a mark of a good education is one that makes the student aware of the existence of major influences in many different fields. It is a shame that people believe that specialized educations of the type you received prepare the student for the real world.

Michael - very good point. I strongly agree with you. I DO wish I had a more balanced education instead of all science all the time. I was stupid enough to think that courses in the liberal arts and economics and such were 'soft' and for stupid people. That was a bad attitude to have and I regret it now.

like I said Ankur, it wasn't true, but in the late 70's high schools were teaching that Keynesian economics had saved America during The Great Depression.

Not surprised. My memory is that it was the 1970s where Keynesian economics was originally debunked.

When I took econ as an undergrad during the Nixon years, Keynesian economics was still being taught as accepted wisdom. But ten years later, in business school, I saw a lot of research that had been done that had debunked it.

Let me restate my previous assertion - you would have to be either ignorant about economics or on the take to continue to support President Obama after the last two years.

By almost every economic measure, the economy is doing better than when he took over. Taxes down, deficit down, stock market up 4000 points, modest job growth, and instead of the economy contracting, it is growing. Or did you mean another country?

Both Beck's and this rally were pretty nonpolitical, but in different ways. This one looked fun - more of a concert really, but Beck's was inspirational, even for an agnostic like me. Beck's people seemed to be looking for meaning, brotherhood, and solidarity. Just a deepe, more mature group. But of course, as we know, they were all insane.

Speaking of sanitarians, can I safely assume the Restore Sanity rally did leave the grounds as well picked up as the Restoring Honor rally participants did? Otherwise I'm certain I'd have seen several comparisons by now.

Overarching nerdiness? Please. You haven't come close to demonstrating that yet.

Oh, and Trooper, it's Trekker.

(See, Ankur? That is overarching nerdiness.)

As for your questions: yeah, this math/physics/computer geek knew who Keynes, Hayek, and Friedman were, and at least a little about their positions. Sometimes the courses you pick are less important than the roommates and friends you pick, as far as getting exposed to a wide range of ideas.

Since Obama's election and his embrace of Keynesian economics the subject has been in the news and discussed on the blogs ad nauseum. Regardless of whether or not one took economics in school anyone paying attention for the last couple of years is familiar with the topic.

Ankur: The flip side is that I have half a dozen books on physics and game theory and black holes and I dutifully plow through them making notes as I go. I then give myself a little test on what I have just read, noted, underlined and highlighted. The sad truth is that you can bullshit your way, or most of the way, through the humanities but not so much with science, mathematics and the physics that nestles beside philosophy.

..What are the odds that the people who knew exactly what Keynsian meant were edited out of the clip?

Seriously - I don't know much about the american education system, but would someone who is not concentrating on economics or knows a lot about economic affairs know about Keynes or Friedman? Was his name common knowledge to you guys when you were in your early 20's to late 20s?

Ankur sounds a lot like another of PB&J's alter egos. He rattles off a list of names, many of which any reasonably well-grounded high schooler might know: I was exposed to Keynes, Faraday, Tesla, Poincare, Planck, and Fermi through various science and history courses.

Some of the others only come into play with the rise of computers.

Bottom line: Ankur wants us all to be impressed with how many names from the world of physics and computer science he can rattle off.

So..does everyone take Econ 101 when they go to college? Is it a core course that everyone HAS to take regardless of what they are majoring in?

I ask because where I went to college, we started with hardcore sciences right away. (Hence the overarching nerdiness)

Makes me wonder if he ever went at all. Most schools do the liberal arts stuff first. I didn't get a year of economics till I was a sophomore.

When I saw the title of this post: ""Obama = Keynesian?" sign makes Rally for Sanity folks insane...... and stupid:" I had no idea that the video would involve thinking Keynesian was Keynan. The S in there makes it seem like a pretty unrelated word to me.

If a person had the word Keynan on their mind then a word with some of the same letters might make them think of it. It is kind of indicative of the "restore sanity" mind-set: They are so sure their opponents are unhinged or stupid that they jump to conclusions.

FWIW, I am quite sure that I never learned about Keysian economics (or, really, any other kind) in college. I don't recall anyone I knew ever taking an econ class, although I know that they are offered now (and assume they were then). If it ever came up in High School (where I took almost every AP class offered), it wasn't enough to stick.

I was a Psych major. I was in my University's very exclusive Honor's program, but the classes we were urged and often required to take were almost entirely based around Humanities/literature and philosophy. Hard sciences and math were basically frowned upon. I graduated HS in 1998 and was in undergrad through 2002, so I'm a little older than most of these folks, but probably close enough to compare experiences.

It's only my love of reading about politics, mostly discovered post-college, that taught me about such things. I'm not at all surprised that most people don't know them.

- Lyssa

(My point, BTW, is that modern education sucks badly at teaching anything that would be actually good for citizens to know.)

The debate about the value of Keynesian policies has been a central issue of this election. It is unfathomable that someone who claims to be a rational adult - and who is about to vote in a federal election - has not taken the responsibility of educating themselves about this enough to at least know that the term refers to an economic prescription.

Of course, the stoned kid probably does know that when he isn't stoned, so I give him a pass.

Looks like Stewarts audience knows more about money that Bill O'Reilly's audience, which is not surprising:

CNN) -- So, three guys are watching TV.

One turns on Jay Leno. One tunes into David Letterman. And the other watches Jon Stewart.

Who's better informed politically?

In a recent survey, viewers of Stewart's "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central tested better than Letterman and Leno viewers on a six-question politics quiz. (How do you stack up? Take the quiz and compare your score.)

Viewers of all three shows know more about the background of presidential candidates and their positions on issues than people who don't watch late-night TV.

On top of that, "Daily Show" viewers know more about election issues than people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey. (Pop quiz)

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a senior research analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said "Daily Show" viewers came out on top "even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age and gender are taken into consideration."

The quiz was given to 19,013 adults between July 15 and September 19.

The quiz included these questions:

"Who favors allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market?" Answer: Bush.

Scores were even lower for those who read a newspaper or watch network news four days a week.

Comedy Central was waiting for news like this. On September 17, Stewart appeared on Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor" only to be told his viewers are "stoned slackers" and "dopey kids."

"You know what's really frightening?" O'Reilly asked Stewart. " You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it's true."

Comedy Central used its viewers' test scores Tuesday to strike back at Fox News Channel and O'Reilly's viewers.

It also trotted out stats from Nielsen Media Research to show that Stewart's viewers are not only smart, but more educated than O'Reilly's.

"Daily Show" viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education, while O'Reilly's audience is only 24 percent more likely to have that much schooling.

Plus, the network noted, "Daily Show" viewers are 26 percent more likely to have a household income more than $100,000, while O'Reilly's audience is only 11 percent more likely to make that much money.

So the guy watching Stewart may not only be smart, but may also be rich.

Garage- Educated does not equal smart or informed. Notice that they didn't, apparently, give this survey to O'Reilly viewers. (Not that that would show much, anyway- O'Reilly's a pompous ass, and I doubt his audience is representative of "conservatives")

BTW, I really wanted to take the quiz myself (not that I would fit into any of the catagories listed), but the link (the one at your link) doesn't work.

Also, I really, really doubt the income statistics. The Daily Show comes on at 11:00, eastern time. Most people who make that much probably don't even stay up late enough to watch shows that come on that late. I watched it when I was in college and just out, like many people, but now, that's just too late.

Mine did. And they are set to go up even more when the Bush tax cuts expire next year. I bet most people's taxes have gone up the last two years. There are plenty more taxes in this country besides the federal income tax.

edutcher says: Bottom line: Ankur wants us all to be impressed with how many names from the world of physics and computer science he can rattle off...Makes me wonder if he ever went at all. Most schools do the liberal arts stuff first. I didn't get a year of economics till I was a sophomore.

Actually, Ankur made it clear in this thread that he was a science major in college who eschewed economics and liberal arts courses, something he regrets now. But I suspect that despite all that he's turned out fine and is a much more successful and productive member of American society than you, edutcher.

They have two questions in the article, and they are hardly indicative of anything but that someone has been watching the Daily Show.

The results show that the group of stoners who watches the political show have a slightly better (60% to 49%) knowledge of political trivia than the stoners who stay up later watching a pure entertainment show.

Lyssa, it makes a lot more sense if you realize it measures "household" income, ie mom and dad.

I knew who keynes was at 20, but then I took econ. Mostly I knew him as the economist who thought stagflation could never happen, until Carter came along a proved it wrong. But don't be too hard on him, since he's reported to have said "when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?" So, respect for that.

Most of the leftists hereabouts are still stuck halfway between Stages One and Two in the grieving process. (They know perfectly well what's going to happen tomorrow, whether they willingly 'fess up to said knowledge or not.)

They'll be ramping up for one last full-bore, pyrotechnic Stage Two tantrum, post-election; and then skipping past Stage Three altogether and seguing directly into Stage Four, by and large. You should have better luck coaxing (semi-)rational, (quasi-)coherent responses out of them by then.

I just saw brief clips from the rally, but it appeared to be a decent, well behaved crowd. They were for the most part young, and many of them will be voting Republican in the fullness of time....Beck is not a harbinger of Nazism, and these kids are not the Red Guard. .....Has anyone not in the field ever read a book on economics just for enlightenment? Those books are difficult, and economics doesn't seem to attract writers with a light touch.

Education has always led to Hubris. When you're young, and you suddenly learn amazingly elegant ideas, and it seems like the answers to the deepest universal questions are just round the bend, its hard to avoid a certain amount of Hubris.

I suspect this was true even in the days of Plato. Everything has its downside.

..If only one could take courses in Wisdom 101.

And Edutcher, this is where I went to school: http://www.iitk.ac.in/

When I went, we were only required to take 2 humanities courses as part of a degree requirement, in a four year period. Of course, I took the ones which seemed to be the easiest grades - Philosophy 141 and Sociology 121 - no answer was a wrong answer in these courses.

I grew up in a small farm town and we learned the rudiments of Keynesian econ by junior year. In college we had to take a core curriculum which included econ that made up half your college courses. I think the impression was that almost everyone would go on for at least a master's from that school and you could specialize then.

@Ankur: No one would call Newton a buffoon just because Einstein comprehensively proved him wrong. And...in many cases, we still use newtonian mechanics.

Newtonian mechanics is a special case that falls out of relativistic mechanics when v << c. The world of Einstein encompasses the world of Newton.

Keynesianism is not a special case of anything. There is only one reason that it ever got any purchase in the world of political economy, and that is because it is a handy excuse for statist politicians, union goons, crony capitalists, and all the other lazy rent seekers to shove their snouts deeper in the public trough. (Much like the moral panic of global warming, by the way.)

None of you know anything about economics apparently. Keyensian Economics revolves around the theory that government spending will keep the economy growing infinitely.It is a failed theory that fails to account for Opportunity Cost, i.e government spending takes away from private sector spending. It creates an ever growing cycle of spending to pay for previous spending. The problem is, and where we are right now, is that the interest being paid on the previous spending eventually oustrips the ability of incomes to pay for it.It also replaces the Austrian Economic theory that "Savings Equals Investment" with "Income equals Investment". "Saving" is Evil in the Keyensian world, as that means the money is not being spent. That is why Interest rates have unnaturally been kept near zero, to punish savers, where saving should be the lynchpin of investment, and the taking of risk. "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell".--Edward AbbeyWe have eaten our economic selves alive. A new system is coming.

India! Interesting, Ankur, because India (c. 1913) was the subject of John Maynard Keynes first major (published) work: Indian Currency and Finance

Modern politics and economics aside, Keynes had a wonderful mind. His influence on 20th century economics can't be overstated, including our own Federal Reserve system.

But personally I admire his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, dealing with German reparations following WW1, particularly how President Wilson was completely outwitted at the Paris Peace Conference by Clemenceau, who sought under the guise of "statemanship" nothing but vengeance.

To his great credit, Keynes (representing the British Treasury) envisioned the onerous effects of the hyper-excessive reparations foisted on defeated Germany, and walked out of the Conference in protest.

In his time, Keynes was a, if not thee, major economic figure, with an attending and astute grasp of geopolitics. So in fairness, the term "buffoon" does not apply - except to his many and confused disciples.

Keynes' book, The Economic Consequences of Peace, was a big best seller in Germany. It contributed mightily to the sense of wounded nationalism that Germans held about their defeat-- feelings that were later exploited by Hitler. Nonetheless, the reparations inflicted on Germany were not extreme. For extreme reparations, see what Germany inflicted on France after the Franco-Prussian War or on Russia after her defeat.....Keynes book had a profound effect not just on Germans but on most thinking people in the west. The feeling was that the problems of the Weimar Republic were a direct consequence of reparations rather than of financial mismanagement by its own politicians. I have read several historians such as Paul Johnson who claims that Keynes' book had more deleterous effects than Mein Kampf.

By that measure, I suppose we could also say Hitler wasn't extreme, even though his ascendancy was spawned by the onerous reparations orchestrated by Clemenceau.

I'm glad Keynes was there to record the details, although the resulting lessons were never learned. Even now as our man in the White House is as clueless as Wilson was at the Paris Peace Conference.

And look at what's happened in between, namely the European Union with the French Court essentially in control. Primarily because yet [another] Austrian got the ear of post-war Charles de Gaulle. The whole French point being to offset Anglo/Slav power by aligning themselves with the "Latin Bloc," namely Islamic.

And with great imperialist enthusiasm the French-EU imported their own executioners. Namely Islamic.